waterboarding

LONDON (Nov. 18) -- In his recent autobiography George W. Bush claimed that waterboarding was a valuable tool for extracting information from the enemy. But while most Western governments dismiss the interrogation technique as an ineffective and illegal form of torture, one foreign group has recognized its merits: the Scottish mob.
Gangs in Glasgow are now using waterboarding to terrorize rivals, according to The Daily Record. The paper cites the case of alleged drug dealer John Fox, who was subjected to the CIA-style technique after he reportedly stole a batch of Valium tablets from his supp...

(Nov. 10) -- Amnesty International is calling for the prosecution of George W. Bush following the former president's admission to authorizing waterboarding techniques, according to a report on the human rights group's website.
"Under international law, anyone involved in torture must be brought to justice, and that does not exclude former President George W. Bush," Amnesty International Senior Director Claudio Cordone said in a statement. "If his admission is substantiated, the USA has the obligation to prosecute him. In the absence of a U.S. investigation, other states must step in and carry...

(Nov. 9) -- No one at the Central Intelligence Agency will face criminal charges for destroying videotapes that showed suspected terrorists being waterboarded, the Justice Department announced today.
After an "exhaustive" investigation spanning nearly three years, federal prosecutor John Durham has decided not to bring charges in the case, Department of Justice spokesman Matthew Miller said today in a statement.
Jose Rodriguez, the CIA's former head of clandestine operations, ordered the 2005 destruction of more than 90 tapes showing the harsh interrogation of detainees Abu Zubaydah and Abd...

WASHINGTON (Nov. 9) -- A special prosecutor cleared the CIA's former top clandestine officer and others Tuesday of any charges for destroying agency videotapes showing waterboarding of terror suspects, but he continued an investigation into whether the harsh questioning went beyond legal boundaries.
The decision not to prosecute anyone in the videotape destruction came five years to the day after the CIA destroyed its cache of 92 videos of two al-Qaida operatives, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Nashiri, being subjected to waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning. The deadline for prosecuting some...

(Nov. 9) -- The British government today disputed President George W. Bush's defense of waterboarding as an interrogation tactic in his memoir, "Decision Points." Bush claims that the technique, which simulates drowning, isn't torture and helped save the lives of British and American citizens.
Not so, says Downing Street, which said it believes, along with President Barack Obama, that waterboarding is torture. "It comes under that definition in our view," a spokeswoman for the British government told The Guardian.
Another former U.K. official, David Davis, also weighed in, saying torture was...

KRAKOW (Aug. 18) -- A life-sized model of a hooded executioner covered in fake blood greets visitors to the "exhibition of early torture devices" located in a darkened brick cellar just off Krakow's historic main square. Certainly this small private museum in southern Poland offers a unique, if perhaps gruesome, reprieve from the typical central European tourist fare.
The exhibition features the standard menu of medieval humiliation and pain, including the well-known iron maiden, the rack, and the witch's chair.
Perhaps less well-known for American visitors accustomed to kid-friendly museum...

Of all the patriotic zealots at the Office of Legal Counsel who helped the Bush Administration undertake its torture policies immediately following the terror attacks on America, perhaps the person least likely to deserve sympathy today is Jay S. Bybee. After signing off on fellow lawyer John Yoo's infamous torture memos in 2002, but before those dubious documents became known to the world in 2004, Bybee was promoted by President George W. Bush from the counsel's office to a judgeship with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. He presides there now, enrobed and life-tenured, with only the sli...

As has been widely reported in recent days, a new Harvard study shows that The New York Times, the country's paper of record, consistently described waterboarding as torture -- until, that is, the Bush administration began employing the interrogation tactic and the paper began scrambling for euphemisms.
"The New York Times defined waterboarding as torture, or effectively implied that it was, 81.5 percent of the time in articles until 2004, the study found," reports Yahoo News. "But during 2002-2008 -- when the George W. Bush White House made a concerted effort to normalize harsh interrogation...

Former President George W. Bush defended waterboarding of the alleged mastermind of the September 11 attacks, saying he would do it all over again if the interrogation technique saved lives.
Bush, in a candid appearance Wednesday night before the Economic Club of Grand Rapids, said "yeah, we waterboarded Kahlid Sheikh Mohammed. I'd do it again to save lives," the Grand Rapids Press reported.
Sheikh Mohammed, who is awaiting federal trial on his behind-the-scenes role in 9/11, was reportedly waterboarded 183 times while in captivity in March 2003. The technique, simulating drowning, is regard...

(June 3) -- Former President George W. Bush says he has no regrets that the mastermind of 9/11 was waterboarded while under interrogation, and he would allow it again "to save lives."
Bush made the comment in a speech Wednesday to the Economic Club of Grand Rapids, Mich.
"Yeah, we waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed," Bush said. "I'd do it again to save lives."
Brendan Smialowski, Getty Images Former President George W. Bush if he had to do it over, he would still waterboard Khalid Sheik Mohammed "to save lives."
Waterboarding is a technique used by CIA interrogators under the Bush admi...